Dacorum Sub Aqua Club

Statement of Alternative Training - SALT

This page explains how divers who were trained outside BSAC can join our system of training.

What is SALT?

SALT is the BSAC joining procedure that allows divers who have trained with other training organisations to:

1. be given the nearest BSAC equivalent diving qualification 
2. receive BSAC specific training, if needed.
3. begin training for the next highest BSAC qualification, if needed. 

SALT means your existing qualification is taken into account. See the BSAC SALT page for further details.

Check out

All trained new members are given a check-out dive by the Diving Officer, Training Officer or a delegate of one of those two. We check out new members no matter how highly qualified or experienced they are. 

Divers with entry level qualifications are checked out in the pool. More experienced divers are checked out in open water.

The aim is to find out the level of the new member's skills so that further training or experience can be provided if needed before his or her BSAC qualification is confirmed. 

We do the check out dive because, right from the start, the new diver will be expected to dive as one of a buddy pair. In our diving conditions, the buddy system is our main defence against problems underwater. An important safety measure is the pairing of buddies of the right skills and experience. We don't know your skill or experience level until we've dived with you.

We generally find that divers who train and dive in cold water regularly, have the same level of skills as us. 

Why would you want to continue your training with BSAC?

Let's look at some scenarios:

1. You're a highly trained and experienced diver, say, a PADI Dive Master with a fifty or more dives in the sea around Britain:

• you're already the equivalent of BSAC Dive Leader, allowing you to dive with a diver of any other qualification, to dive to 50 metres and to do decompression dives
• you're not going to gain much from our diver training (Ocean Diver to Dive Leader) as your personal skills will be high already
• but you can develop your skills and learn some useful things by:
  • doing  Skill Development Courses such as boat handling, navigation, dive marshalling and technical diving
  • becoming an Advanced Diver (concentrating on dive trip planning, organisation and supervision rather than underwater skills)
  • becoming a BSAC Instructor

2. You're a well trained and fairly experienced diver, say, a PADI Rescue Diver with more than thirty dives in the sea around Britain:

• you're already the equivalent of BSAC Sport Diver, allowing you to dive with another diver of your qualification or above, to dive to 35 metres and to do decompression dives
• you will benefit from our Dive Leader course which will increase your personal skills and change your way of thinking about dives so that you can lead inexperienced divers underwater. It will qualify you to dive with any other diver, go to to 50 metres and do decompression diving.
• there are some interesting things you can learn by:
  • doing Skill Development Courses such as boat handling, navigation, rescue management and nitrox
  • becoming an Assistant Instructor

3. You're a trained but inexperienced diver, say, a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver. You may not have dived in the sea around Britain:

• you're already the equivalent of BSAC Ocean Diver, allowing you to dive to 20 metres but not to do decompression dives. You will dive with an experienced diver as a buddy until you gain the Sport Diver qualification.
• you will benefit from our Sport Diver course which will increase your  personal, dive leading and rescue skills
• there are some interesting things you can learn by doing Skill Development Courses (boat handling, nitrox and oxygen administration)

See our page on BSAC Diving Qualifications.

Getting further training and experience

You may be asked to learn skills and become experienced in dive conditions that you have not encountered in your previous training. Examples are:

• In water rescue techniques - on most of your dives with us, you and your buddy will be totally alone, so you need to be able to rescue your buddy
• Dive leading skills - you need underwater navigation, decompression and safety skills to get your buddy pair through a dive enjoyably
• Cold water diving equipment - especially using dry suits
• Low visibility diving experience - low viz diving is a fact of life for us. The places we train at will help prepare you for the real thing in the sea
• Use of reels, surface marker buoys and delayed buoys -we make regular use of these tools to get back to safety after a dive
• BSAC 88 Dive Tables - you'll need to be very familiar with these because they are used in every BSAC diving course and every diving and instructor theory test

The format and level of additional training and experience will vary according to the initial training organisation, the new member's level of  experience and qualification.

Technical diving

You'll find that BSAC is not terribly quick to adopt new styles and techniques, such as nitrox, technical diving and rebreathers.

Many people are happy that BSAC, as an amateur organisation, should not be leading edge, believing our members need solid and reliable advice and training on mature techniques and equipment.

BSAC does, however, recognise the training and qualifications carried out by certain Nitrox, Technical and Rebreather agencies.

Select this link for a conversion table of nitrox qualifications.

BSAC now offers several technical qualifications: Basic Nitrox, Advanced Nitrox, Extended Range and Initial Rebreather.